The Survivors
by Preciousheart93
Summary: A year after Trillian has left Zaphod on the Heart of Gold, Zaphod is improbably visited by a human whom he ends up telling his story to before finding out that she is connected to one of the people he used to travel with. Sad at the end, as this takes place during Mostly Harmless, and ends with an unusual pairing. Read at your own risk.
1. Prologue

_The house was small but jumping, the drinks were mediocre but intoxicating, he was disguised and anonymous and no one seemed to think that was strange, and he was having the time of his life. Partygoers made his dumb parrot act the center of attention, and it was hard not to laugh from inside the birdcage when so much alcohol was swimming around inside of him. He had made the right choice to drop by this planet, even if it was hidden in one of the more wretched reaches of the Galaxy. Here, the people seemed to unconsciously recognize what a big deal he was, and he greatly enjoyed their awe and entertainment. In fact, he figured that he was having such a great night already, he might as well take a girl back to his ship and top off the fun. He'd been chatting up the ladies all evening, but there was one in particular who had been staring at him, and who had also been hindered by an extremely awkward, clumsy guy all night. His heart went out to the poor dame who so obviously needed rescuing, and he moved across the floor to meet her._

"_Would you like a drink?" the awkward man was saying, and without waiting for her response, turned around and nearly bumped into one of the men carrying trays of champagne. As he busied himself with pouring a glass and trying to make sure the drink didn't spill anywhere, the man with the birdcage sidled up and gently wrapped one of his arms around the awkward man's abandoned date. "Hey, doll," he said sweetly, drawing her into himself. She was even prettier up close, her big brown eyes filling his entire line of vision. She would definitely do for him. _

"_Is this guy boring you?" He jerked his visible head in the direction of the awkward man, who was still busying himself with the drinks, having ended up accidentally spilling the champagne after all. "Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet." Here on Earth, the ignorant natives had no sense of life outside of their own planet, but if this woman was as drunk as he was and if the party's atmosphere lingered, he knew she would fall for it, or at least listen to him long enough to humor him. He'd been told through word of mouth that she was an astrophysicist, and he grinned at that, knowing that what she would see with him would blow her mind and make her rethink her entire lifestyle._

"_Oh, are you?" the woman said, laughing slightly, but he was no longer listening, instead keeping an eye on the awkward man, who was turning back now with the drinks. He had to get away with this girl before the other man realized his date was being stolen. "What's your name?" he asked carelessly, leading the woman through the crowd. He didn't particularly care, as he knew that he would forget it a few minutes later, but it never hurt to get to know someone better._

"_I'm Tricia McMillan," she said. "And who are you?"_

"_You can call me Phil," he beamed, although in his mind he shuddered at the name he had chosen to go incognito with. "Would you like to see my spaceship?"_

_Back in the corner of the room, the awkward man felt his heart sink as he watched the woman he had hopelessly devoted his entire night to winning over walk away with the ridiculous parrot guy's arm around her shoulders. He sighed and pressed the drinks he had just received into the hands of a nearby couple, who were surprised as first but then eagerly downed the champagne. That about did it for the Islington party, then. He wouldn't even stay any longer to find out if his friend, Ford, would make good on his offer to gatecrash the place. Most likely Ford had forgotten about his invitation to the party and was at home reviewing the script for the next play to audition for, or he was simply drinking on his own at the nearest pub. Filled with an air of dejection, Arthur shoved off and headed for home._

_Tricia and the man who called himself Phil were meanwhile arguing over Tricia's bag. "Do you expect me to leave the planet without any personal belongings?" she was saying, indulging this man in his fantasy. "Yours must be a very backwards planet if you expect women to leave without their bags."_

"_Aw, c'mon, baby," he pleaded with her, seeing the slight hardness in her eyes and not able to tell if she was joking with him or not. "Where we're going, you won't need anything in that silly bag of yours." Finally Tricia admitted that she would come along with him without her bag, but if the spaceship turned out to be a real dive without any homely comforts, she would turn tail and go back to the party. He gulped and hoped that he had done the laundry recently._

_Fortunately, she didn't decide to leave him, and he obtained great pleasure from watching her eyes widen and her mouth form an O-shape as she realized he hadn't been joking about being from a different planet. The spaceship gleamed in the moonlight, and he eagerly tugged her forward, wondering when he could shed his costume at last. "Come on, doll-face! I'll show you how these babies fly!" They rushed onto the spaceship, where Tricia's eyes boggled and she walked around, taking everything in with great detail while he lifted off. Tricia stood gawking at the window as the spaceship took flight, watching Islington fade away beneath her. Unable to wait any longer, he freed his second head from beneath the birdcage and came forward, grabbing the stupefied Tricia around the waist. His lips were on her lips and on her neck at the same time, and she stood frozen and wound her fingers into both heads of hair._

"_My God, you really are from a different planet." She spoke dully, either in disbelief or blankly accepting the truth of the matter._

"_See," he said, pausing his kisses for a few seconds, though the second head continued to busy itself with her radiant neck, "what'd I tell ya after all?"_

_That night they awkwardly made love on the spaceship- he was disdained when he found that Tricia's body wasn't suitable to accept his, but she had her own ways to get him off- and fell asleep in each other's arms with the ship on autopilot, spiraling through the night._

"_Your name's not really Phil, is it?" Tricia whispered sleepily in his ear._

"_Baby, you don't know who I am?" He was unable to believe this, even when taking into account the immense stupidity of humans. "Zaphod Beeblebrox, Galactic President right here!"_

_Those were the last words spoken before they both fell asleep for the night. The next morning, when he was sober, he was startled to find her in his bed- he had bedded plenty of women on other planets before, when he was incognito, but never taken them to space with him. However, when he returned to Planet Earth to drop her off at her house, she insisted on staying with him. He was surprised. No woman had ever wanted to travel with him before, instead sleeping with him just to brag that they had nailed the Best Bang since the Big One. But Tricia, after gathering her bag and two white lab mice, declared that she wanted to spend the rest of her life traveling through the Galaxy._

"_Are you sure this is what you want, baby doll? Excitement and adventure and really wild things?"_

"_Of course," Tricia responded, her eyes sparkling. "I'd love to come with you. Just call me Trillian."_

_And so she stayed, and eventually their relationship deepened and he came to truly love Trillian, though he would never admit it to himself. Though he was terrible at personal relationships, she forced him to give more time and effort than he ever would have normally to building theirs. And together they lived happily, for a time… but certainly not forever…_


	2. Part 1

Zaphod awoke in a muddled daze from his dreams, and it took him a while to remember where he was and what he had done the night before. His left side head was still fast asleep- it had probably drunk more than his right head, Zaphod guessed wearily. Taking care not to disturb the head's slumber, Zaphod sat up on his bed ever so slowly and glanced around. He was where he would always be- the _Heart of Gold _starship, stolen illegally by Zaphod at first but then awarded to him as a prize for helping save the Universe with his friends from the Krikkitmen- and, judging from the empty bottle of that Ol' Janx Spirit that was protruding from the bottom of his bed, he had been drinking heavily all last night. Zaphod rolled the bottle beneath his feet and grimaced at the pounding pain in his right head. (The left one was still pleasantly sleeping, and Zaphod envied it.) Ever since that girl Trillian had left, his nights hadn't been very entertaining. Nor were his days, but Zaphod was never going to admit his extreme boredom to anyone.

In this confused state of mind, one head deeply hungover and the other fast asleep, caught between trying to remember his dreams and mentally retreating from them at the same time, it almost didn't register with Zaphod at first that there were noises coming from the bridge of the _Heart of Gold. _When he did notice them, however, he sat bolt upright, his left head waking up from the shock. "Who's there?" it called, and Zaphod's other head told it to shut up. He focused both pairs of ears on the bridge, and slowly became aware of the footsteps of someone clumsily stumbling about, someone who had no right to be on this ship. Zaphod had been its only passenger for weeks on end. As he listened, one part of him feared that the intruder was an evildoer quite like the Krikkitmen that he had faced so bravely the first time Trillian left him. But another, more dominant part of him figured that anyone who had been sent to cause harm to him or the ship wouldn't be stumbling about the bridge like a blind bat.

Comforted by his logic, Zaphod got to his feet quietly and walked out of the door to his cabin, which gave a soft hum in satisfaction. He slipped through the shadows of the ship's corridors until he reached the doorway that led to the bridge, which he easily walked through.

"Pleased to be of service!" the door rang out, but there was no threat from its giving away Zaphod's position. Zaphod relaxed as soon as he got through the door upon seeing the visitor, even though he was still unsure how she had arrived. The intruder was a small young humanoid woman with long brown hair tumbling down her back, dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt and a short black skirt. Her back was to Zaphod as he entered the room, but as soon as the door gave its cry of pleasure she whirled around, her green eyes wide.

"Who are you?" they asked each other at once- she in a frightened tone, he in an interested tone.

Seeing that neither was going to answer first, they both tried again. "How did you get here?" Zaphod asked the woman, while she asked simultaneously "Where am I?" Silence fell once again upon realizing their blunders.

Then they both blurted, "This is the starship _Heart of Gold_!"

"Ha!" said Zaphod, flexing his hands together while the other arm tidily arranged his hair. "Took you long enough. What gave it away, baby? The interior, or the sight of yours truly Zaphod Beeblebrox, one time Galactic President?" Done with fixing his hair, his second right arm fell, and both arms stretched forward as if offering a hand to shake. Both of Zaphod's mouths grinned widely, conveying absolute assurance in himself, which may or may not have been completely false.

The woman who had appeared so suddenly did not come forward to take either hand. Confusion was slowly turning to resentment in her eyes. "So that's what you look like," she said, studying him closely. "I've heard a lot about you from a friend, you know. Apparently you're a real _jerk."_

At first Zaphod was hurt by this accusation, though his ego wouldn't allow the insult to settle. Who would this girl have met who would be badmouthing Zaphod? He was universally loved by everyone- well, okay, there were a few detractors here and there, but most held a special fondness for him. Then a thought came into his brains, and try as he might to banish it, he couldn't help the words from crawling out of one of his mouths. "It wasn't Trillian, was it?"

The woman shook her head and lowered her eyes.

Then it hit Zaphod, and the realization made him want to smirk with one mouth and burst out laughing with the other. _Ford. _Of course it was his semi-cousin Ford who had called Zaphod a jerk. He was still angry at Zaphod for the last time they had met and played the Ol' Janx Spirit drinking game. Ford had lost, as he usually did, but instead of taking his punishment with dignity Zaphod had eschewed the usual winner's fates and forced Ford to do something that he considered so disgustingly despicable he had refused to speak to Zaphod again. Of course Zaphod knew it was only a matter of time before Ford came around, probably when he was broke and wanted to beg for money. It had to have been Ford, the sore loser, who had talked down to this girl about Zaphod. Well, soon he would have to show her that he wasn't the jerk his semi-cousin had made him out to be.

"What's your name, doll?" Zaphod asked, stepping forward to get a better look at her. "And how did you get here?" When she glanced up at him, he noticed that she had some gray in her eyes as well as green, and a few smatterings of large brown freckles on her cheeks. For a humanoid, she was stunningly attractive, though she was no knockout like Trillian.

The woman blinked her lovely eyes. "My name's Fenchurch, and I…" She sighed and glanced around at her surroundings as if trying to compose herself. "I'm not sure how I got here… One moment I was traveling through space, the next I found myself here- just teleported out of nowhere."

_Fenchurch, _Zaphod thought to himself, liking the sound of it. He inched even closer to her. "Well, baby, it's a good thing you chose this place to teleport to. This is the hippest ship in the entire Galaxy- the-"

"Are you alone?" Fenchurch suddenly asked, rounding on Zaphod aggressively.

For a moment Zaphod was taken aback. _Was he alone? _What kind of question was that? He had Eddie the Computer, and the happy doors, and- and- Suddenly it dawned on Zaphod that before Fenchurch had arrived on the bridge that morning, he had indeed been very alone. And it had been more and more intolerable each day, try as he might to pretend it wasn't. He was _dying _for some company.

"Not anymore I'm not," Zaphod said, grinning with both mouths and hoping the façade looked genuine. In fact, he desperately wanted it to be genuine. But deep within himself, he was nervously afraid, and he couldn't explain why.

Fenchurch did not look impressed. She crossed her arms. "I meant before I came in on the scene. Were you alone before? I thought you traveled with a girl named Trillian… a human…"

All Zaphod could do in reply to this was freeze in place, one mouth falling open and two words running speedily across both brains. _Oh, Belgium…_

"Someone hasn't been keeping up with the news," he said lightly, moving over to the Sub-Etha radio and turning the device on with a wave of his hand. "Trillian Astra's on every single channel these days, hey?" Though it was hard for him to hear Trillian's voice, together Zaphod and Fenchurch listened closely as a charming British accent filled the air, her words fitting smoothly into the rhythm of the song pumping beneath. "Now that the six-foot yellow puma of Nejkorf has been coaxed down from its twenty-foot tall tree, it remains to be seen whether it still wants to devour its keepers, or if it is too exhausted from all the fuss to be bothered. We'll have more on that story later. In other news, there are rumors of a war forming between-"

Zaphod irritably flicked his hand, having heard all that he could stand, and the Sub-Etha device switched off. He turned to Fenchurch, who was staring back at him with realization dawning in her eyes. "I see. So she left you?"

_What? _Why did this woman care? Physical attractiveness or no physical attractiveness, she had no right to barge in here like she owned the place and ask Zaphod all sorts of personal questions. He replied with an edge to his voice. "Not as such."

"She didn't leave you _as such?" _Why oh why was this reminding him so violently of one of his conversations with Trillian?

"Hey, what is this, Pick On Zaphod Day?" he snapped at Fenchurch, briefly losing his cool. "I didn't ask you to come around and inquire about people I used to know, y'know. Fact is, I didn't ask you to come here at all. So why don't you just shut your mouth, okay?" Zaphod turned angrily to the screens that showed him the coordinates of the Galaxy and began poring over them, pretending to be absorbed in his work. "Look, if you'll let me know where your planet is I'll take you home and expect you to never bother me again." On one level Zaphod was glad that he was getting rid of Fenchurch, but on another level he knew he would miss the distraction. Ah well, he still had a couple hundred years left in him before he was expected to keel over and join his great-grandfather in whatever passed for an afterlife for Beeblebroxes. There was sure to be another, less annoying girl to come along in his life eventually.

Fenchurch's reply to Zaphod as he turned back to face her was crisp and cool. "Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha."

If everything else that Fenchurch had said to Zaphod had been mild surprises, this truly bowled him over. He struggled to keep both faces smooth, though one of them was having a harder time staying under control than the other was.

"That's where Trillian is from," Zaphod said, completely failing to keep all the shock out of his voice. Fenchurch nodded.

"But… but that planet had a big kablooie caused by the Vogons…"

"Earth 2.0," Fenchurch said. "Although I don't want you to take me there. I want to be taken back to the ship I was on with my boyfriend, before I ended up here."

Zaphod just stared at Fenchurch for a moment more, aware that he was gawking and hating himself for it, before briskly turning back to the controls and searching the digital star maps for Earth, to see if what Fenchurch said was true. Sure enough, the Earth appeared in ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, just as Fenchurch had suggested. Zaphod supposed it wasn't the most improbable thing that he had ever witnessed, and turned back to Fenchurch, who had decided to take a seat at the control panel nearby and slouch back in the chair, gazing at Zaphod as if waiting for him to say something.

"Well, if you don't know the name of the ship it looks like you're stuck here with me," he said, mixed feelings rising in his stomach as he said so. He wasn't sure he wanted to keep Fenchurch around, and at the same time he was quietly desperate for someone to talk to.

Fenchurch said nothing in response to this, and after a short while Zaphod left the bridge to gather up drinks to share with Fenchurch, deciding that he might as well get roaring drunk to make the coming afternoon more bearable. He mixed two Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, his famous specialty, and carried them back onto the bridge, where he offered one to Fenchurch at arm's length. She peered into the glass.

"Arthur and I tried one of these on the planet we went to after we found out God's Final Message to His Creation. We got so plastered after one sip that I can't even remember the name of the planet. We woke up outside of some club where they'd put up a sign forbidding us from entering the premises. I've sworn off the stuff since."

"Oh well," Zaphod said, settling himself into a seat. "More for me, then." An uncomfortable voice in the back of his brain reminded him that getting drunk before noon was never a good idea, especially not if one's name was Zaphod Beeblebrox, but Zaphod told the voice to get lost and sipped eagerly from both glasses at the same time. His heads buzzed pleasurably.

Fenchurch, seeing that her host was more intent on getting pissed out of his skulls than talking to her, sighed quietly to herself and turned on the Sub-Etha radio wave band again. Trillian's voice swirled through the room once more. "This is Trillian Astra, reporting live from the planet Renqhu…"

"She really gets around," Fenchurch murmured. From the other side of the control panel, Zaphod grunted in dissent, already well on his way to complete drunkenness. "No, she doesn't. She stayed with me for about four years and never cheated once. I'm sure she'd have liked to though."

There was a brief pause, filled up by the gunk music that had taken over the airwaves, and then Zaphod muttered, "I always hoped she'd eventually call herself Trillian Beeblebrox. You know, just to make it official. I've got no idea where she got the Astra thing from, but it really doesn't have that ring to it." He downed the last of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster in the glass by his right head and settled back, fully prepared for a complete loss of memory.

Fenchurch turned off the Sub-Etha radio. "Why did she leave you in the end?"

Zaphod, no longer inhibited by his self-consciousness, gave a shrug. "She was mad at me. Said I'd wasted her life, that she regretted leaving the instant she heard Earth had blown up… She said she'd had all sorts of dreams for her life, including making a name for herself and having some kids, and that if I couldn't give her the kids or allow her to make the name, I wasn't worth her time." His left head finished off the second Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and immediately lapsed into silence.

Even under the influence of alcohol, there was no way in the world that Zaphod could repeat what Trillian had said to him the last time they had seen each other. It had been on this very ship, the _Heart of Gold_, a month after they left Ursa Minor Beta, where they had spent part of their four-year-long holiday now that the _Guide's _headquarters had relocated. Trillian had seemed distant in the weeks leading up to the argument, but Zaphod, being admittedly bad with personal relationships, hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. Sure, she had been on her own in the deepest recesses of the ship often when Zaphod was trying to decide which planet to visit next, and she talked to people in secret on the Sub-Etha network, but such actions made Zaphod feel uncomfortable and as a result he stopped thinking about them. So it came as a total surprise when Trillian came to him one morning and declared that she had been offered a career in journalism, and had to leave both the _Heart of Gold_ and Zaphod in order to pursue it.

At first he hadn't understood. "Hey, that's great news, baby! Time for a whole new adventure, what d'ya say?"

Her face had darkened, turned stony. "Zaphod, I just said you can't follow me along everywhere I go. I'm leaving this ship today."

Still confused, he had followed her out of the bridge and into her sleeping quarters, pleading with her to let him come along with her. That was when the hurricane struck, when the big argument came. She had snapped and yelled at him while packing up her belongings, explaining in only one sentence why Zaphod couldn't come- "Zaphod, I don't _want _to stay with you!"

This statement was dumbfounding for Zaphod to hear. Having to leave was something he understood. He had had to leave his old home on Betelgeuse Five when he had first gotten a job working on the trade scout ships. Trillian's new occupation was more of the same. But wanting to leave? Zaphod couldn't figure it out. He'd thought that so far things were going well between himself and Trillian, that she was enjoying her life as one big party. He was the most exciting sentient being in the Galaxy, living glamorously on the hippest ship ever created. Why would anyone want to leave him?

"What do you mean, Trillian, baby?" he had blurted as she threw her clothing into the large traveling bag that she had made Zaphod go back for the day after he took her away from the Earth. "I thought we had it made together…"

"You thought wrong," she hissed, never looking him in the eye as she spoke.

"Really? You're tired of… of this? No more excitement, adventure, and really wild-"

"You've used that line on me too many times for it to work anymore!" Trillian hauled her bag off the bed, her eyes blazing, and pushed past Zaphod, heading for the bridge of the ship. "I want you to take me to the nearest spaceport. If you don't, I'll just teleport out of here." She paused before adding, with vigor in her voice, "I can do that, you know." And Zaphod did know. He remembered uncomfortably the memory that he liked to push out of his minds as far as possible, that one time in their relationship when she had gotten fed up with his behavior and left. He had still worried afterwards, somewhere in the very back of his mind, that it would happen again one day and he would never get Trillian back. Now the nightmare was coming true.

Numbly, Zaphod returned to the bridge and programmed the ship with coordinates, although he didn't give it the command to leave just yet. He simply sat and stared at the screens before him, more bewildered than angry or upset. Then he turned around ever so slowly in his seat and gazed over at Trillian, her arms crossed over her breasts and her eyes downcast.

"What's wrong with this life?" he asked, in a rare attempt to argue nonchalantly. "What's wrong with m-"

And that was when she told him, in her actions as well as her words, that it wasn't the life she would have chosen had she stayed on Earth. That she had made the biggest mistake of her life in joining him on his intergalactic travels, that she had wanted a career and children and running off with Zaphod had negated the possibility of her having either. That she was tired of babysitting him and always cleaning up after the messes he made and fixing everything he botched up. She called him a stupid idiot and an inconsiderate jerk. She heavily bashed his ego, claiming that he cared more for himself than for her- why else would he have constantly claimed in every presidential interview that she was nobody, instead of making their relationship known? Why else would he have always spoken for her whenever others in public directed a question to her?

It was at this last accusation that Zaphod finally grew angry. He fought back by telling Trillian that she was special to him, that he had never let any other woman stay this long. He admitted to making mistakes in the past, but recalled fond memories full of love of their recent trips around the Galaxy, hopping from beach resort to beach resort. And he made the mistake of telling Trillian that he wasn't sure what the big deal was, because up until this day she had seemed perfectly content with her life. He hadn't noticed or had shoved from his mind the recent changes in her behavior- how she had begun to speak of Earth more often, and sighed rather than laughed at Zaphod's silliness. He hadn't realized that her glances were no longer full of affection and now held completely nothing.

"Zaphod," Trillian finally broke in, incensed by his words that so clearly proved her point, "there's one expression we humans have on Earth that applies to this situation. I'm not sure if you've ever heard it before. I've never heard it once outside of my home planet. But I'd really like to tell you-" She paused, and for a second Zaphod saw her lip trembling, and thought that she wouldn't have the nerve to go with what she was about to say. But she did it after all.

"Fuck you," Trillian said, and then sank back into her seat, glancing away from Zaphod. The two words resounded in his four ears. She was wrong in assuming that he hadn't heard the phrase before, and his heart stung. But before he could allow the pain to sink in, he spun back around in his seat, impulsively deciding to get rid of its source instead of having to deal with it. The _Heart of Gold _appeared at the closest spaceport in no time, and Trillian disembarked, never to look back. Zaphod tried to kiss her goodbye, but no displays of affection would win her heart back, the two words that Trillian had spoken hanging heavy in the air between them. As soon as he was sure she wasn't going to return, Zaphod pulled out of the spaceport and left, speeding away.

From there he had led a solitary life in the Galaxy, stopping by party planets here and there to live it up and buy more alcohol. It hadn't been a terrible life, at least not until Fenchurch had arrived and gotten him to dwell on things in the past which he didn't want to dwell on. Rolling his drunk eyes towards her now, he wished she would go back to whatever improbable dimension she had come from.

Fenchurch sat in place with wide, sympathetic eyes trained directly on Zaphod. "I'm so sorry that you lost Trillian," she said quietly. She crossed her legs and sat back, gazing with at him with pity. It was then that Zaphod realized he had told Fenchurch his entire story, speaking his thoughts aloud. Embarrassment burned both faces, and he looked away from her.

"Yeah, well, that's the end of it," he said, not wanting to say any more than he had to about the subject. His minds lighted on a few of Fenchurch's words from earlier, and he let the question spring to one pair of lips, enjoying the retaliation. "What about you, babe? Didn't you mention a boyfriend of some sort?"

Glancing out of the corner of his eyes, Zaphod could see that the words hadn't hurt Fenchurch in the way he had hoped. She blinked steadily at him, her countenance filling with anger. "Yes, and he and Trillian were right. You really are an inconsiderate jerk. I just told you Arthur's name a few minutes ago, and you can't even be bothered to remember-"

"Wait!" Zaphod blurted suddenly, the name striking him like a sledgehammer. "What did you just say? Your boyfriend's name is _Arthur?"_

"Yes," said Fenchurch stiffly. "Arthur D-"

"Dent!" cried Zaphod, leaping from his seat. "Of course I know the cat!" Though he wasn't sure Arthur merited the coolness of a "cat," but it didn't matter. It wasn't Ford after all whom Fenchurch had been consorting with- it was that ignorant human Arthur Dent, who he had first met at the party that he had rescued Trillian from. Just to know that this woman had some connection with the friends that Zaphod hadn't seen for years made his heart flutter wildly. He gazed deeply at Fenchurch with a new light in his eyes.

"How did you meet him? When?" There was so much that Zaphod wanted to ask, all over a human that he had never given a toss about before.

"We met on the reinstated Earth that the dolphins left behind for us," Fenchurch said. "That was… two months ago, on our clock." She sighed and looked down. "I might never see him again now."

The springs and gears inside of Zaphod's brains that the alcohol of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters had rusted were now turning again, studying every angle of Fenchurch's situation. He continued to stare intently into her face, longing to reach through her to Arthur, and through Arthur, Trillian. "Where were you going before you zapped out of the ship?"

"We were taking an interplanetary cruise," Fenchurch replied, her gray-green eyes locked onto Zaphod in a mixture of interest and confusion. "The first planet we were going to visit was said to be Agua, a planet made up entirely of ocean, but I ended up here before we could reach it."

"I know the place," Zaphod said shortly, remembering and regretting that he had never taken Trillian there. "Do you think Arthur'd have gone on to Agua without you?"

"No," Fenchurch said slowly, shaking her head, "but I don't know where he could be now."

There was a pause, and then Zaphod, in a burst of epiphany, snapped the fingers on all three hands and grinned broadly with both mouths. "Hey, I've got it! Where else would the monkey man go if he was alone in the Universe?" He sat back down in his chair, invigorated, and began pulling up maps on the screen before him. "Why, he'd go back to Earth, of course."

"Arthur and I left the Earth with intentions never to see it again," Fenchurch informed Zaphod behind his back. "You can try, but I doubt he'll be there."

"Doesn't matter," Zaphod muttered, tapping the control panel in joy. "Trillian- er, Fenchurch, we have got it made! And if we don't find him, at least I can show you some sights along the way."


	3. Part 2

Because the probability was large that Arthur Dent would have returned to Earth, or a version of it, after losing the love of his life, the _Heart of Gold _had a difficult time being programmed to land on Earth, and more often than not Fenchurch and Zaphod found themselves on an entirely different planet in an entirely different sector of the Galaxy. While the first mistakes were frustrating to both (though Fenchurch was notably more annoyed than Zaphod), they eventually forgot their goals and simply enjoy themselves traveling across the Galaxy as the false landings accumulated. With Fenchurch, Zaphod found himself excited by every ordinary sight as he watched her reactions- first she would be startled when confronted with a new oddity, and then her manner slowly turned to acceptance. She was a little more emotional than Trillian, going as far sometimes as to emit shrieks at the stranger-looking beings they met, but she was far quicker to accept their differences. Zaphod was eager to show her around planets that he had rarely given a second thought before, but now, seeing them through Fenchurch's eyes, they were brand new.

They traveled to Agua, where they nearly crashed the ship in the ocean, mistaking it for the sky. They traveled to Krikkit, Arthur's former home, and Zaphod bragged about how he was the only living creature to survive an attack from the Krikkitmen. They traveled to Squornshellous Zeta and observed the behavior of living mattresses. Eventually they started arriving on alternate Earths, but the first place, NowWhat, was so dismal that they had to leave as soon as they dropped by. Fenchurch began discussing taking Zaphod to see God's Final Message to His Creation- "it gives one an immense sense of peace"- and after a bit of cajoling, Zaphod finally agreed this was the cool thing to do. In his haste to get to the control panel, he accidentally turned on the touch-sensitive Sub-Etha radio wave band, which had been off for the entirety of his and Fenchurch's interplanetary travels because neither of them wanted Trillian's voice intruding on their holiday. A wave of static crackled through the room.

Fenchurch looked expectantly at Zaphod, waiting for him to turn it off, but he just stood in one place, staring at the Sub-Etha radio with a look of puzzlement on his face. "Aren't you going to turn it off?" she finally said.

"Hey, this is strange," he said without looking at her, more to himself than to anyone else. "Trillian's not reporting on this channel." He went over to the radio and attempted to tune it, but it only grew more and more static-filled. "No one's reporting on this channel."

"Doesn't matter," Fenchurch called behind Zaphod's back. "It's no problem. Are we going or not?"

Zaphod didn't answer her or say anything at all. He merely changed the channel, searching obsessively for one of Trillian's news reports. As long as he knew she was still out there, he could sit back, relax, and enjoy his trip with Fenchurch. But there was still nothing- gunk music, static, and the voices of unfamiliar announcers who sounded nothing like Trillian. Zaphod only stopped when he caught the word "Earth."

"Shh!" he hissed to Fenchurch, though she wasn't speaking, and together they listened intently.

"…as it happens, every one planet in sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha has inexplicably blown up all across the Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash. Why are we mentioning a backwater planet that no one in their right mind would visit? Well, besides the fact that it's a highly improbable occurrence, it just so happens that our star reporter Trillian Astra was headed that way the last time we spoke to her, and it's more than likely that she was on the Earth when it exploded. Today's a sad day to be in the news business, folks. Rumor has it that she was meeting her daughter and the father of her child…"

"You didn't tell me she had a daughter," Fenchurch said, confused. Zaphod, shocked to his core at the news but trying not to show it, turned off the Sub-Etha radio wave band and turned to Fenchurch. It took him a few moments to find his voice. "This is news to me, baby- er… Fenchurch. She must have had the kid while we were exploring the Galaxy."

"But who would the father have been?" Fenchurch said. "You told me that only human DNA could impregnate her…"

They both fell silent as they realized what this meant. Zaphod looked at the floor, anywhere but at Fenchurch's face, which was slowly filling with the shock he felt.

"Well," he said unhelpfully, "now we know where Arthur Dent was. So that's that."

"Yes," Fenchurch said, and drew a shaky breath. "That's… that."

There was another long pause, and then Fenchurch moved close enough to Zaphod to bury her face in his chest, crying. Zaphod, normally uncomfortable with these sort of situations, but recognizing Fenchurch's pain, awkwardly wrapped all three arms around her and held her close. The reality of the past few days- or had it been weeks? Maybe even months- finally caught up with him. Fenchurch had been having so much fun with Zaphod that she had forgotten that who she really wanted was Arthur, and Zaphod had enjoyed showing Fenchurch the sights so much that he had forgotten who he really wanted was Trillian. And now their two partners were gone, and all they had left was each other.

Zaphod rarely felt emotion of any nature other than joy or anger, and he rarely felt either with immense depth. But as he held the sobbing Fenchurch, he felt his own four eyes burn. Not with tears- Betelgeusians did not have tear ducts, as their eyes were naturally moist all the time, leading to such feats as Ford breaking the record for going the longest without blinking. Instead, he was overtaken by extreme empathy. He knew exactly what Fenchurch was feeling because he was feeling it too, and it was an alien emotion to him. He didn't know what to do, except hold Fenchurch and remember that he had lost Trillian, pushed her away with his behavior so that she ultimately ended up dying on Earth in a tragic accident. Her death, and Arthur's, was Zaphod's indirect fault.

It wasn't a surprise when Fenchurch's lips found Zaphod's. He welcomed the change, closing his eyes and filling Fenchurch with his imagination. He kissed her until she became Trillian.


End file.
